The Golden Threads

Nellie was brought up by her grandparents and lived in the East End of London. At the age of 19, she was able to start the job she had wanted, in a large J. Lyons & Co. Corner House tea room in London, where she became a ‘Nippy’, as the waitresses were called, where she also met her lifelong friend Connie.

Soon after she also met the love of her life, Tommy Brown, but her idyllic life was soon to change with the outbreak of WW2. The comfortable and safe routine of life was soon turned on its head.

The Emperor's Marble Pavement

The Emperor’s Marble Pavement, the second of four novels about the fall of Constantinople, finds Niccolo Gritti and Demetrius Alexandrou plunged in the turmoil of a city on war’s brink, their friendship complicated by the presence of Theodora, Demetrius’ pious sister and the prostitute Cinnamon. Now in the Emperor’s service, Niccolo must make accommodation with an embattled Venetian merchant colony. The struggle between Constantine’s supporters and those who would appease the Ottomans climaxes in the infamous Service of Union in Hagia Sophia. Then Demetrius disappears, a victim of his peace-party enemies. Niccolo goes in pursuit and the friends are reunited in the Turkish court, under the cynical eye of Mehmet II. Here, courtesy of Nestor-Iskander, a Christian fanatic in the Sultan’s service, they witness the Ottoman siege train’s ominous preparations before fleeing back to Constantinople. In The Emperor’s Marble Pavement, the cross-currents of personal and historical destiny take on new turbulence.

Sanjog A Novel

1946, Dehra Dun, India. The Radcliffe line is drawn and the largest mass migration in history is taking place. 1960, Nairobi, Kenya. A young man is starting a new life as an immigrant Indian with his young family. 2017, Halifax, Canada. A society wedding is bringing family, friends and foreigners together who have not seen each other for years. Three countries, two rivals, two female abductions. Set against a backdrop of post-partition India and Pakistan, 1960s' Kenya and modern-day Atlantic Canada, this tale follows the story of two families, united by heritage, torn apart by hatred. It retells the tragedies of partition violence and the fight to restore human dignity when all is lost. The story of families ripped apart and long-lost buried secrets finally culminate in an outpouring of pent-up grief and injustice that must be avenged. The plight of two women, bound together by history, yet torn apart by time. Sareeta desperately trying to reunite her family against the tides of bygone generations and migration. Gori trying to claw her way out of a poverty, inflicted on her by circumstance and revenge. Women so similar and yet so wildly apart that the idea of any reconciliation seems to be beyond reason. Accented with family recipes handed down through three generations, Sanjog - A Novel will take you back in time to one of the most turbulent events in human history and bring you through a story of love, malice and redemption.

Rogue Malory

London, 1469. Rogue Malory sets out to show how, ‘comfortably imprisoned’ in Newgate Jail, Sir Thomas Malory works on his magnum opus, Le Morte D’Arthur, with the help of his scribe, Montmorency Pickle, his servant, John Appleby, and his stationer, Jack Worms. The story is an imagined account of the preparation of the famous manuscript, the true revelations of Sir Tom’s disreputable past and the factual events covering the final two years of the ongoing tussle for the crown between the Earl of Warwick and King Edward IV. A combination of real and imaginary events brings to life this arresting period of history.

Reluctantly, Monty and Jack become embroiled in Malory’s political machinations whilst also contending with his dissolute yet magnetic character. Whores, pimps, spies and officials pass in and out of Sir Tom’s cell, where he sits at its centre like a hilarious old spider weaving mischief.

Outwitting the Enemy

Andrew was recruited into the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) in 1939 for his linguistic talents and other qualities suitable for working in the Service.

By early July 1940, he had already been sent on four missions including the sabotaging of a train carrying tank engines inside Germany, assisting in the evacuation of BEF soldiers from Dunkirk on one of the ‘small ships’ and surviving a number of life-threatening incidents when bringing King Haakon and the Norwegian cabinet from northern Norway to exile in London.

In November 1940, he is persuaded to help at Camp 020 with the interrogation of German spies captured in England; a few weeks later, he completed his naval officer training in Scotland and southern England.

With the Atlantic convoys being attacked by U-boats operating out of the German-occupied ports of Lorient and St Nazaire with heavy losses, he is sent at the end of March 1941 to spy on the building of the submarine pens for a possible raid by the RAF later in the year. He narrowly avoids being captured by the Wehrmacht and returns to London with vital information.

He undergoes parachute training in May 1941 before being dropped in NE France where he is escorted by a French Resistance group to Koblenz. His mission is to deal with a member of the SIS that had become a senior officer in the German intelligence service (the Abwehr). By some good fortune, he manages to escape by Lysander back to England.

The story is a most compelling, absorbing and attractive read with strong classical elements. It has a clean plot for the time period covered which develops and unfolds through a captivating storyline; the relatable cast of characters will keep the reader enraptured up to the very last page.

Napoleon: Guillotine

King Louis is imprisoned. The Republican faction in Paris is growing stronger as the beat of the snare begins to ring in the ears of Europe. To quell the seething discontent of threats inside and outside of France, Napoleon is dragged into supporting a regime that has thrown away any pretence of Liberty in its quest to cover the globe. All the while Napoleon is forced to challenge his own traditions and overcome the pain of betrayal and exile from his home, to continually prove loyalty to a country that spurns him still. As the blade rasps down and the cruelty of those he serves becomes even more difficult to justify, Napoleon must strive to preserve his exiled family and navigate the unconscionable. As France struggles to survive the onslaught of foreign invasion, Napoleon must conquer an inner turmoil so raw and powerful that it drove him to the siege of Toulon and the beginning of greatness.

N'in D'la Owey Innklan: Mi'kmaq Sojourns in England

This is a historical novel, beginning in 1497 and taking us, in a series of vignettes, through five centuries of interconnections between the Mi'kmaq people of Atlantic Canada and London. Each character begins their story in different regions of the Mi'kmaq world of the North American Atlantic Coast; they end up in various regions of London, ranging from the 16th-century Austin Friars monastery to 20th-century Limehouse. The novel encompasses descriptive scenes of London in different eras, alternately addressing the eroticism of lovers, the wide-ranging lives of whalers and sailors, the horrors of nursing during World War I and the overwrought world of heroin users in late 1970s' East London, interspersed with occasional short pages of intellectual commentary. Ultimately, it is a labour of love for homelands lost.

Jack Wolf

You will be brothers, you will see death and destruction, you will be expected to run into fire when every other living thing runs away, you will work long shifts, days, nights, Saturdays, Sundays, high days and holidays, Christmas days and your birthdays. You will be injured and burned, and don’t kid yourself it won’t happen to you, it will. And consider this: On average two firemen are killed each year in service. You are expected to do this job for thirty years. Nobody wants to pay you decent wages, they will tell you that you sit around all day, play snooker and squirt water for a living. You will be like Cinderella… you will live, eat and sleep behind the red engine house doors and when called to serve, when the fire bell rings you will answer their call, their fear and their alarm. You will risk your life for a stranger, someone you never knew or will ever know and when the alarm has passed, when you are exhausted and done, you will return to the fire station, close those red engine house doors behind you and lick your wounds.

We are their insurance; they never want us, until they want us, then briefly, briefly, we are heroes.

In Search of a True World View

Will utopian teachings and totalitarian regimes shape the future of humanity? Ronald Fagerfjäll, nestor among Sweden’s financial journalists, does not believe that at all. Religions only reflect a bygone era when men guarded herds of cattle and young women became barter for creating bonds between clans. And totalitarian regimes were formerly the general norm because something better had yet to be invented. An infallible leader quickly stifles the ability of his subjects to solve problems.

The obsolete is cleared out as economic, technological, and cultural evolution continues relentlessly, driven by millions of change projects and billions of free citizens. In knowledge economies, neither feverish fantasies nor feudal structures fit in. We cannot know our future with any certainty, but still, we create it ourselves by solving one concrete problem after another.

What does an evidence-based history of humanity look like? Our biological development was first and foremost a result of a fierce struggle for survival higher up in the food chain, first as scavengers and then as hunters. It required ever better ability to cooperate as well as constant development of weapons and tools. The fact that some 40 ice ages and countless volcanic winters passed during millions of years pushed the early people close to extinction and accelerated cultural development.

From this eye of the needle came Homo Sapiens, a species which could meet the threat from nature with innovations, stories, and cultures. Fagerfjäll has been working on his history book for four decades, but it is only now, when researchers have been able to take a closer look at both the life itself and the history of the planet, that the tale has been completed.

For anyone who doubts humanity’s ability to deal with today’s problems, this is a vaccination against pessimism.

In Green Pastures

In 1917, war rages on in Belgium and France, and German bombs fall on East London. Two sisters, Florence and Nell, living in Stratford, arrange to leave the city for the tranquillity of the North Essex countryside.

For Florence Mundy, fleeing personal demons and the imminent return of Harry, departure from London cannot come soon enough.

Nell Ashford has the safety of her five children on her mind while George is away at the Front.

In Halstead, lying peacefully in the Colne Valley, they find new challenges, friendship and pain as well as personal fulfilment. Florence discovers salvation and hard work in the newly formed Women’s Land Army while Nell takes on the role of breadwinner to her family.

But they cannot escape the consequences of the Great War and the arrival of German Prisoners of War changes the dynamics of Halstead life and Florence’s future prospects as the armistice approaches.

I, A Dumb Boy

“‘Oh, Thomas, do you recall the miracle you performed?’

Yes, I did recall the miracle, if that’s what it was. I recalled other things too. Fergus and the secret chamber. Caty and her still-born child. My sister’s treacherous kiss.”

Norfolk, Virginia, 1775. Thomas Starling is fourteen years old but has never found the courage to speak to anyone except his older sister, Bethany. A visit from a stranger one night triggers a series of events that leads them to embark on a journey to the city of New York. There they encounter a community of outcasts and a demoralised army preparing for a British attack. Thomas yearns to be free of his boyhood and his dependence on his sister, but he is haunted by bitter memories of that terrifying night on the Georgian frontier … the girl in blue, the burning barn, the hanging corpse. His past is finally catching up with him.

George and the Briton

Mark is a young British sailor who is deployed to Antioch in Syria as part of a delegation to brief the Emperor Diocletian on the liberation of Britain from a usurper. By coincidence, he meets the Tribune Constantine who introduces him to a fellow Roman Army officer, George. Mark can write in Latin so George appoints him as his clerk.

Mark is tasked to keep an account of the operations of the ‘special forces’ unit that George commands on the front line of the Eastern Roman Empire. He also keeps his own private diary and is required to provide Constantine, who is a member of Diocletian’s personal staff, with periodic accounts of operations.

As George achieves some extraordinary results and Diocletian manages to stabilise the Roman Empire following a generation of chaos and uncertainty, a new problem arises. Diocletian’s deputy, Caesar Galerius, starts seeing Christianity as a subversive religion. This becomes a challenge for George, his family, and some members of his unit.

This is the tale of Constantine and George, told through the eyes of a young soldier’s diary.